Dan Petrescu

Dan Vasile Petrescu (Romanian pronunciation: [dan vaˈsile peˈtresku]; born 22 December 1967) is a Romanian professional football manager and former player.

As a player, Petrescu was deployed as a full-back or a winger and began his career at Steaua București, with which he played in the 1989 European Cup final. Abroad, he represented Serie A clubs Foggia and Genoa, before moving to the Premier League where he played for Sheffield Wednesday, Chelsea, Bradford City, and Southampton, respectively. With Chelsea, Petrescu won the 1998 UEFA Cup Winners' Cup. He earned 95 caps for the Romania national team, being selected in two World Cup squads, in 1994 and 1998, and in two European Championships, in 1996 and 2000.

Petrescu became player-assistant manager to Walter Zenga at Național București towards the end of his playing career, and has since had an extensive career as a head coach in Poland, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, Turkey, and South Korea, in addition to his native country. His first job was at Sportul Studențesc, which he led to Liga I promotion. Petrescu has won domestic honours with Unirea Urziceni, Kuban Krasnodar, ASA Târgu Mureș, Jiangsu Suning, and CFR Cluj. He is the second-most successful manager in Romania, tied with Emerich Jenei, winning the league on six occasions (five times with CFR Cluj and once with Urziceni), and was also named Romania Coach of the Year a record five times, tied with Mircea Lucescu.

After playing for Steaua București's youth teams, Petrescu was promoted into the first team in 1986 in a match played by Steaua just one month after winning the European Cup. He was loaned to Olt Scornicești for the 1986–87 season, but asked to return to Steaua in 1987.

Petrescu was part of the Steaua squad that reached the European Cup semi-finals (1988) and the final (1989).

In 1991, Petrescu was bought by Italian club Foggia in a period when the club saw promotion to Serie A. In 1993, he moved to Genoa.

Petrescu signed for Sheffield Wednesday in 1994 from Genoa, after a successful 1994 World Cup for Romania. After one season at Hillsborough, he signed for Chelsea and featured prominently there for the next five years. During his term at Chelsea, he was a member of the teams which won the FA Cup in 1997 and the League Cup and Cup Winners' Cup (both in 1998). After falling out with Chelsea manager Gianluca Vialli after a defeat to Manchester United (a game in which he scored), Petrescu never played for the club again and was not even selected as a substitute for the 2000 FA Cup final against Aston Villa.

Turning down a move to Southampton in August 2000, he instead moved to Bradford City for £1 million, scoring one goal, against West Ham United.